Poetry
Рифмологион
Not translated into English
Simeon Polotsky · 1680
Synopsis
The author's great collection of court verse, assembled from 1678 and enlarged until his death. It includes cycles of verse greetings for Christmas and Easter addressed to the tsar and his family, panegyrics, poems offered for the events of the ruling family, among them L'Aigle russe, composed in 1667, and Gusl' dobroglasnaïa, of 1676, as well as two plays on religious subjects.
Context
The author began fair-copying his court verses in 1678 and went on adding pieces until August 1680. The result was a manuscript of 654 leaves, which also copies pieces written long before, as early as the 1660s. Together with the Vertograd mnogotsvetny, the author's other great collection, it contains the bulk of his work; neither was printed in his lifetime, and his pieces have appeared since only in fragments, in scholarly editions.
Who it is for
A considerable body of syllabic verse in Church Slavonic, with no known French or English translation; best approached through the pieces published in selections of Russian works.
Prizes and reception
Regarded as the author's great panegyric collection; he is seen as the initiator of syllabic verse in Russia and the first professional court poet.
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The pages consulted to check this page.